Citing Information in a Written Discourse

• Citing information in a written discourse

  Providing references to sources used in a written work
• Citing information sources appropriately

  • Respect the legal and ethical aspects of using information
  • Give credit to the authors for their work
  • Citing sources indicates the works that support your paper
  • Establishes the background of your topic
• How to develop your citation skills

  1. Begin citation with notecard

  2. Marginal Notes
• Sample #1


  • According to the book entitled Developing Technical Writing Skills written by Casela and Cuevas published in 2010, an effective technical writer must demonstrate information literacy skills.
• Sample #2


  • Casela and Cuevas (2010) describe an effective technical writer as an individual demonstrating information literacy skills.
• Sample #3


  • Tang, Zhang and Yang (2017) conducted a fuzzy assessment for failure mode effects on insufficient information engine systems. Tang et al., identified seven techniques to identify risks in a mechanical system, human operation especially on Failure Mode Effects and Critical Analysis (FMECA), an analytical technique that is used for failure modes and evaluates failure effects of a system mechanically, physically or operationally.
• Modern Language Association (MLA) style


  Commonly used in literature and languages, focuses on the author, the work, and the page number, uses author-page system, requires brief in-text citation to sources, supplies page numbers in a parenthetical references, presents full name of the author on the first mention in the discussion, presents last name only of the author in the succeeding discussion and parenthetical citation with page number
• American Psychological (APA) style

  Commonly used in biological sciences, earth sciences, social sciences, business, considers variation in education, home economics, physical education linguistics, sociology, political science, geology, uses in-text citation which includes the name (preferably the last name only) of the author, the year of publication, uses past or present perfect tense for author-year in-text citation, uses present tense for generalization and stable conditions, focuses on the date
• Chicago Manual Style (CMS) style


  Commonly used in fine arts, in some fields in the humanities (but not literature), commonly known as the footnote system, records details of bibliographic entries, presents additional information, uses superscripts within the text, places documentary footnotes on corresponding pages
• Council of Science Editors (CSE) style


  Uses citation sequence system for applied science like chemistry, physics, computer science, mathematics, medicine, nursing and general health, employs in-text number to identify source, uses numbers that correspond to the citation, uses name-year system for biological and earth sciences like agriculture, botany, zoology, geology and also anthropology, archeology, astronomy, uses in-text citation with name (preferably last name only) and the year of publication